SKETCH OF J. B. BO US SING A ULT. 837 



whicli was marked by sagacity and precision, a work which he 

 was destined to resume and complete fifty-six years afterward, 

 without modifying his first conclusions. 



In his twentieth year, and when he was full of ardor in the 

 pursuit of science, and thirsting for the glory of conquering in 

 new fields of investigation, and at the very time, it seems, when he 

 was contemplating a journey to Asia, he received a proposition 

 from an English company to go to South America, to recover some 

 old mines that had been abandoned for many years and resume 

 the working of them. A scheme had also been broached for 

 founding at Bogota a school of mines like that at Saint-Etienne ; 

 and as there were explorations to be made in the volcanic districts, 

 and the observations and determinations that had been begun by 

 Humboldt to be carried on, Boussingault accepted the mission 

 with its tempting prospects of further scientific work. In prepa- 

 ration for it, he doubled his diligence at the Sorbonne and the 

 Museum, took lessons from Arago in the management of instru- 

 ments of observation, and obtained letters of introduction from 

 Humboldt, He took passage in September, 1822, in an American 

 brig of eighteen guns, which did not succeed in making the landing 

 at Laguayra without having " a brush " with a Spanish frigate. 



■ Boussingault found the country in the midst of the revolution 

 against Spanish rule. Bolivar had united Venezuela and New 

 Granada into the Republic of Colombia, and had propagated the 

 insurrectionary movement into Peru. The circumstances were 

 hardly favorable for the prosecution of the peaceful work he had 

 marked out. He sought Bolivar in his camp, to consult with him 

 concerning the course he should pursue. The interview was rude- 

 ly interrupted by a fusillade ; it was, however, only a picket-skir- 

 mish, and the Liberator, resuming the conversation, remarked; 

 " You will observe, sir, that you have come to a country where the 

 miner's pick is less used than the soldier's musket ; it is easier for 

 me to give you an officer's commission than an engineer's license." 

 Boussingault accepted the office of lieutenant-colonel. 



Boussingault spent ten years in South America, making use of 

 every opportunity to study the grand phenomena in which that 

 region is so rich, and reaped as the fruit of his sojourn an abun- 

 dant harvest of observations in many departments of science. His 

 work included numerous mineral analyses ; the discovery of a new 

 mineral, which he named, after one of his teachers, Gay-Lussite ; 

 analyses of the milk of the " cow-tree," of palm-wax, of guanos, and 

 of the thermal waters of Venezuela; and the discovery in the 

 province of Antioquia of a bed of platinum, a metal which had 

 previously been known only as it was disseminated in sands. He 

 often made his analyses of minerals on horseback, with the aid of 

 a portable balance ; he carried a Fortin barometer slung over his 



